


The City and the Garden

by Gileonnen



Series: Bridge, Bloom, and Barrier [2]
Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: Anal Sex, Data Encoding, Gorillas, Handkissing, M/M, Sustainable Agriculture, Technology of Jabariland, Tiny Children Plotting Treason, Wakanda's Olympic Aspirations, banter and teasing, implied open relationship, statecraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-29 18:21:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13932657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gileonnen/pseuds/Gileonnen
Summary: When T'Challa receives an invitation to Jabariland, he hopes to deepen his growing intimacy with M'Baku. When he arrives, though, he finds himself learning far more than he had expected about Jabariland and its people.





	The City and the Garden

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Sath for beta-reading! Any remaining errors are my own.

When T'Challa had revealed Wakanda to the world, he had expected that decision to ripple outward in a thousand unusual ways. As he watched women from the River Tribe kick and knee and headbutt a ball into a net, though, he reflected that he had never once considered whether Wakanda would want to participate in the Olympics.

They did not, as it turned out, want to participate. They wanted to _win._

The air smelled of grass and fresh earth. Far below T'Challa's elevated booth, the players thundered across the pitch in uniforms patterned after Wakanda's flag. On one side of him, Shuri sat calculating player statistics, and on the other, Nakia gave a whooping cheer for every goal. She was radiant in the sunlight, her smile pearl-bright and green glass beads glinting at her ears and neck. When T'Challa felt his attention wandering, he only had to look at her to be overcome by her enthusiasm.

"If we participate," she was saying, "we can lobby for more humane building practices. No more displacing lower-income citizens to build stadiums. No more pools and tracks that the public are forbidden to use. Wakanda understands sustainable public works; we can do better. We _must_ do better."

T'Challa grinned. "Taking on another project, Nakia?"

"Someone should."

He reached for her hand, and as he did, his kimoyo beads chimed with an unfamiliar caller. Laughing, he turned up his palm to take the call.

Static crackled across his hand, blackness flashing with unfamiliar symbols in bursts like lightning. "What is this?" he asked, which made Shuri look up from her mathematics.

She studied the shuddering glyphs for a moment, then rolled her eyes. "Jabari data encoding," she said, clearly unimpressed. "I have been _trying_ to convince them to standardize ever since the jamming towers came down, but they prefer their system. I think they just like making me do extra programming. Here, let me upload the decoder script." She touched her beads to his; they flashed red, then golden, then finally white. The kimoyo beads gave a bell-like chime, and then the message unspooled in shining letters over T'Challa's palm.

_M'Baku requests your presence. Do not keep me waiting._

Nothing more. No polite noises about cultural exchange or diplomacy; no formal occasion made decorous by paints and protocols. Impossible not to read an unspoken promise in the invitation.

Despite the heat of the day, an icy thrill of anticipation sang down T'Challa's spine. "I have been invited to make an appearance in Jabariland," he said aloud.

Nakia clasped their hands together. For a moment, the offer lay over the back of her wrist like a silver bracelet, then it faded away. When T'Challa looked up at her, her eyes gleamed with mirth. "Do you want to go?" she asked, as though she didn't already know the answer. She understood, he thought, that it mattered to be asked.

"Very much," he answered. "M'Baku has always shown me excellent hospitality."

"Except for the time he stabbed you," Shuri put in. "Or the time he buried you in the snow."

"It was medicinal snow."

"That's what he says, but—"

"Ssh!" hissed Nakia, pointing.

On the field, a woman landed a wheeling kick that sent the ball careening across the pitch. The other spectators went silent, watching the perfect arc of the ball. The goalie dove. Her fingertips grazed the ball; it glanced up from her hands, and seemed to hang suspended for one long moment—but as she hit the ground, the ball tipped gently past her and brushed up against the netting.

The crowd leapt to its feet, shouting with a thousand voices, "Wakanda forever!"

It was the first time since the Battle of Mount Bashenga that T'Challa had heard those words ringing over the grasslands. Behind him, he sensed the Dora Milaje tensing as though they, too, felt the echo of Okoye's call to arms.

The moment passed, and when T'Challa came back to himself, he was applauding.

Shuri nudged his ribs. "While you're in Jabariland, see if they can put together a ski team. I want to win the Winter Games, too."

* * *

There were no air docks in Jabariland, and so the royal hovercraft landed upon the wind-scoured plaza before M'Baku's palace. As T'Challa descended the ramp, the gale caught his heavy coat and sent it whipping around his legs. False fur tickled his throat and ears.

His two Dora Milaje escorts offered no complaint, but he thought he heard their teeth chattering.

The three of them waited there in silence for long moments, staring up at the craggy summit of the mountain. Above them, the hulking form of Hanuman stood in stony judgment.

"Maybe they aren't home," said one of the Dora Milaje.

"We should have called ahead," said the other.

"We were invited," said T'Challa. "Have patience."

 _Have patience,_ he told himself, flexing his hands against the cold.

High up on the peak, a brazier flared to life. Then another, further down the snow-touched switchback road—then a third, and then a dozen more in a swift cascade of flame. The light caught on the swirling snow in pillars of golden sparks, illuminating the road and the Jabari warriors marching down it.

Even through the howling wind, M'Baku's marching cadence carried. The Jabari came in a column with their leader at their head, resplendent in furs that accentuated his powerful shoulders. Their footfalls were a drumbeat that quickened T'Challa's heart. _So this is a state visit after all,_ he thought. _I should have spent longer getting dressed._

Just beneath the overhang of the hovercraft, M'Baku called his warriors to a halt. They stood with their spears at rest, eyeing the two Dora Milaje with clear looks of calculation. "The first time you came to Jabariland, it was against your will," pronounced M'Baku in a ringing voice. His face betrayed no emotion. "The second time, it was without my invitation. But this time, for the first time, I can truly say—welcome to Jabariland!"

When M'Baku broke into a gap-toothed grin, T'Challa couldn't help smiling in answer. He stepped into M'Baku's arms and embraced him, letting his radiant warmth flow into chest and hands and cheeks. "You took your time, my friend."

"I thought you would walk."

"I didn't want to keep you waiting."

"I like your impatience," M'Baku said, laughing. He began leading T'Challa's party down the mountain, and the Jabari formed into an honor guard around them. Below, a broad stone stair wove between clusters of Jabari houses, which spread out over the mountainside in untold thousands. A warm, golden glow spilled from every window and open doorway. The lamplight shone on spearpoints and glittered on the drifting snow. T'Challa glimpsed children galloping between alleys, market stalls edged in twinkling multicolored lights, warriors stopping to chat with mothers and old men.

This was not at all how T'Challa had imagined this visit would go. "Is there some occasion for your invitation, beyond your own pleasure?" he asked.

"I should tell you it's a holy day on our calendar," said M'Baku, laughing. "A feast day. Dancing and singing and fucking all night long."

"And how is that different from your usual nights?"

"Whoof!" scoffed one of the Jabari, and soon the rest of them joined the chorus—"Whoof! Whoof! Whoof!"

"You've been here three minutes, and already I'm not sure whether they're laughing with me or at me." M'Baku flicked snow off of the white fur collar on his vest, then slung his arm around T'Challa's shoulders. "The feast of Hanuman was more than three months ago. So sorry we forgot your invitation."

"There will be another feast." Ahead lay the city, close enough that the scent of it washed over T'Challa in a wave: smoke and orchids, fried bread and exhaust. A pair of stone sentinels guarded either side of the bridge into town, their faces carved into sharp-toothed gorilla grins. "Where are you leading me?"

"To Jabariland," M'Baku answered, and they passed over the bridge and into the city.

All around T'Challa, the city rose in unfamiliar architectures—domes of tiered glass, smooth concrete walls breaking the rough stone of the mountainside. At every ridge and ledge, bridges and balconies jutted over the abyss, nothing but their girders to prevent a long, stony fall. Streets of steel and wind-scoured wood hugged the cliff faces, illuminated by streetlamps in orange and cool violet-blue.

And everywhere, the Jabari, laughing and working and singing and watching.

Here, a pair of girls giggling over a video of a cat falling off a window ledge. There, an old woman with heavy gauges in her ears haggling over the price of fish. A heavyset man in a fur-lined robe of black and gold, peering out from his balcony as a white monkey danced across his shoulders. Two little boys who stared after the procession with wide eyes, then darted into an alley with a shriek of laughter. A woman on a hoverbike, careening through the crowd on some urgent unknown mission as her braids flew out behind her.

He put his hand out to trail along a wall and found to his surprise that what he'd thought was concrete was in fact skillfully layered wood.

Before, T'Challa had seen the most isolated parts of Jabariland: the fastness of M'Baku's halls, the untrodden roads and the deep woodlands. But the city before him rivaled his own.

"Is that the king?" someone asked, and for an electric moment, T'Challa wasn't sure whether they meant him or M'Baku.

T'Challa felt a tug on his coat, and he looked down to see a girl who couldn't have been more than six. "Are you the Black Panther?" she asked.

"He's the bad guy!" whooped a boy who might have been her brother. "Whoof, whoof, whoof!"

M'Baku laughed and rubbed the boy's head. "What's this? A proud Jabari warrior? How did you let the Black Panther past our defenses?"

"You did invite me to visit you," T'Challa reminded him.

"Did I? Sounds like a flaw in our security."

Not far away, a woman working a food cart rolled her eyes. "Please don't encourage my children to commit treason, M'Baku."

T'Challa couldn't help smiling at M'Baku's obvious delight as the boy ran back to his mother. "Your people seem happy. They've prospered under your guidance."

M'Baku raised both brows. "What were you expecting? Poverty? Suffering?"

"I was expecting ..." T'Challa looked to the end of the street, where a crew of workers ate takeout from plates made of tough-looking leaves. They leaned on the girders that supported one of those precipitous balconies, apparently unafraid of the thousand-foot drop at their backs. "I was expecting a nation of warriors. But instead I find that Jabariland is a nation of builders, and I wonder what bridges they will help us to build."

"Being king is knowing when to break heads, and when to build bridges." M'Baku glanced over at the Dora Milaje, still following a few paces behind. When T'Challa followed his gaze, he saw that their jaws were clenched and their hands clasped tightly around their spear hafts. An untrained eye would have seen no crack in their stony facades, but he recognized the slight tremor to their lips and hands.

"I appreciate the opportunity to see more of Jabariland," said, T'Challa, "but I would be a poor king if I allowed my companions to freeze while I go sightseeing. We are unaccustomed to this cold."

"Tomorrow, we'll get you some warmer coats," M'Baku agreed. "Tonight, though, I have one more thing to show you."

"I hope it has central heating," muttered one of the Dora Milaje under her breath.

"Better," said M'Baku. "In this place, the Jabari have captured the sun."

* * *

At the center of the city lay a building of what T'Challa had thought at first was glass—but as they approached, he saw that the substance had a strange, otherworldly iridescence. Its surface swam with whorls of green and silver, violet and peacock blue. _A force field,_ he thought, peering up at a dome that gleamed like a soap bubble in the fading light. Beyond the shimmering walls, he could make out bright flashes of color and deep, shifting shadows.

He looked to M'Baku and found him studying T'Challa's face, probing for a response. "What is this place?" T'Challa asked.

M'Baku pressed his hand to a panel of pure energy. It rippled, then dimmed, then parted like a curtain. The heady scent of flowers spilled through the gap in a wave, and with it, the musk of rich earth. T'Challa heard voices raised in a work cadence, sure and steady, their song punctuated by laughing birdcalls. Hot, faintly humid air warmed his face, filling his mouth with the fetid-sweet taste of growth.

Even before he looked through the panel, T'Challa knew the answer to his question: "This is your garden."

"This," said M'Baku, eyes shining with pride, "is Hanuman's garden."

As M'Baku had promised, the sun's warmth was trapped here, creating an oasis of summer in the eternal winter of the mountaintops. T'Challa found himself shedding his coat as he entered.

They stepped into a rambling forest, marula trees and black plums and sourplum trees weighed down with coppery fruit. Vines wove between their roots, their striped melons beginning to swell amid their fading blossoms. _It isn't like the jungle from the valleys,_ T'Challa realized as he followed the pathway between the trees. _These plants come from every corner of Africa. Who brought them here? Who cultivated them for our climate? What have the Jabari been doing in the world, while we thought they were biding their time in the mountains?_

"You like it?" asked M'Baku. "Planted the traditional way—no rows, plenty of birds and monkeys to fertilize, no clumps of single crops to drain the soil or spread diseases."

"I did not think you were a farmer," T'Challa said, but he didn't bother to hide the admiration in his voice. "So this is the tradition you meant to defend from me?"

"And now, it's the tradition you'll defend from everybody. Put that on your kinging list: build bridges, break heads, learn shit about topsoil." M'Baku paused under a low-hanging black plum, reaching up to pluck it down. It came away easily, and he rolled it across his palm as though testing its ripeness. Whatever he felt must have satisfied him, because he took a huge, savoring bite. Juice ran down the corner of his mouth and into his beard, a tempting blood-red streak.

T'Challa swallowed, then reached up to wipe it away with the pad of his thumb. When M'Baku met his eyes, he brought his fingers to his lips and deliberately licked them clean.

A guttural scream shattered the moment. T'Challa whirled, hand going to his necklace of claws; the Dora Milaje brought their spears down and moved to guard his flanks.

M'Baku threw back his head and laughed, slapping both hands on his thighs. As the Dora Milaje slowly relaxed their guard and T'Challa let his hand fall back to his side, M'Baku gathered himself together with visible effort. "Come—come with me," he said, wiping tears from his eyes. "Let me introduce you to Hanuman's children."

Beneath the apex of the dome stood a fountain, with a great ape carved of stone pouring water endlessly from a heavy urn. Hanuman's bounty fed a half-dozen gentle streams that snaked through the hardwood trees in coils of silver.

It also fed the three white gorillas sporting in the pool around the fountain, who sat laughing and grooming and eating overripe plums. The red juice gave their faces a ghoulish look, but their eyes were quite calm and unafraid.

"Freeloaders," muttered one of their Jabari escorts, a woman with her hair woven into thick braids.

"How dare you speak about my children that way?" M'Baku clapped a hand on her shoulder, then went to sit on the fountain's edge with the biggest gorilla. He greeted him with grunts and pointed gestures, and to T'Challa's surprise, the gorilla answered in kind. Heavy, nimble hands sketched signs; one juice-stained fingertip thumped against M'Baku's chest, and the both of them laughed as though the gorilla had told a good joke.

When T'Challa made no move to approach, M'Baku waved him over. "Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to come meet a gorilla?"

"I'm afraid I do not speak his language."

"Then come here and _learn_ it. Unless you think it will just fall from the sky if you wait long enough?"

Slowly, careful not to make any sudden movements, T'Challa approached the fountain. He sat at the water's edge, close to M'Baku, and looked up at the gorilla. "No eye contact," M'Baku warned. "Unless you think this is a fight you can finish."

"I'll remember that." Instead, he looked at the gorilla's hands, which began to shape what were (somehow, incredibly) words. Until that moment, he had half-suspected that the language of the gorillas was just another one of M'Baku's jokes. But as he watched the gorilla introduce himself, he began to understand why M'Baku was so quick to defend these creatures as fellow children of Hanuman.

"I am T'Challa," he said, low. "How do I tell him that?"

M'Baku shifted to sit behind him, catching each of T'Challa's hands in his own. When he pointed, T'Challa extended his index finger to match; when he curled T'Challa's arm in to tap his chest, T'Challa let himself be guided. Even in the warmth of the garden, M'Baku radiated a heat that bled into T'Challa's back and shoulders, and the sure, steady pressure of his hands filled T'Challa with a sense of peace.

They sat there for long minutes, trading simple words while the last sunlight faded and the garden's lamps grew dim. The work songs broke into conversations, which drifted away and then went quiet. Eventually, even the gorillas grew bored and lumbered away into the shadows of the trees.

Then there was only the soft music of the fountain and the warmth of what T'Challa could no longer pretend was not an embrace. M'Baku's breath warmed his brow and cheek; his pulse was loud in T'Challa's ears. "I have one more thing to show you," M'Baku said.

"This was not what I was expecting, when I received your message."

"Two more things," M'Baku conceded, "if you count my cock, and you should. I thought you'd want to see what happened to those purple flowers we found."

T'Challa climbed to his feet, offering M'Baku a hand up. Grinning, M'Baku gripped his wrist and rose to join him.

They followed a trail into a stand of bush pears heavy with the smell of resin. In their shadow, broad-leafed taro plants carpeted the ground, and lower still, moss and tiny white flowers that T'Challa couldn’t name.

From deep within the grove, though, came a faint violet light that T'Challa knew well. He knelt, reaching out to brush the soft petals of the heart-shaped herb with his fingertips. "I've been thinking, since you brought me to your city."

"Not your usual approach, but go on."

"Last time I was here, you wanted me to see you as a fellow man. You wanted me to recognize our shared humanity. But this time, you want me to recognize you as a fellow king. You want me to see what you protect, and what you risk losing by becoming a part of Wakanda."

M'Baku sat heavily at T'Challa's side. "Or maybe I'm just leading you around by the cock."

"I had considered that." The light of the flowers eased the imperious angles of M'Baku's face, picking out the tight curls of his beard and his dark, keen eyes. "But I do not think you would have brought me here, if all you wanted was to frustrate me. This is a sacred place, and the duty you've trusted me with is a sacred duty. I'll do my best to be worthy of it."

M'Baku took his hand, turning it over to clasp it palm to palm. "If you aren't, I can always stab you again."

"If this is how you flirt, I see why all your children are gorillas."

M'Baku laughed. "You like it."

"I do." He brought M'Baku's hand up to his lips, brushing the knuckles with a light kiss. "Now, please escort me to bed. You said you had one more thing to show me."

* * *

T'Challa's back hit the door before he was out of his coat, and then M'Baku was on him with sharp teeth and searching hands. The moment T'Challa got his coat unclasped, M'Baku dragged it down over his shoulders and skinned up his long black robe. "You wear too much," he said, scraping his teeth over T'Challa's ear.

"Then take it off me." T'Challa caught one of M'Baku's hands and stripped away the fur-and-spike bracers, which fell to the floor with a heavy clatter. "Your clothes have too many parts. How do I have to take off so much when you wear so little?"

M'Baku laughed and helped with the other bracer. "I want to make you work for it."

When at last their clothes lay in a heap at their feet, T'Challa surged up to press bare skin to skin. Their lips clashed, joined, fit together; their tongues met and parted. His arms twined around M'Baku's powerful body, and T'Challa felt a strength to match his own in those corded muscles and thick, heavy bones.

It was impossible not to remember holding M'Baku's life in his hands, grappling with him on the cliff's edge as his heartbeat throbbed from a half-dozen wounds. A part of him longed for the elation of that struggle, the pure contest of strength and skill.

The rest of him craved a different repletion.

He walked them back step by step to the bed at the center of the room, then pressed M'Baku down onto it. He let himself be laid upon the snow-white blankets and silvery furs, his eyes gleaming with pleasure. The light of a brazier caught the warm red tones in M'Baku's skin and outlined his scars with shadows. 

T'Challa leaned down to map one scar with lips and fingernails. "This time," he said, "I want you inside me."

M'Baku smiled, like a promise and a threat. "This time, I'm ready for you." He shifted up the bed to dip his hand in a broad wooden bowl, and his fingers came out shining with oil. 

At the thought of those fingers working him open, T'Challa's mouth watered. He crawled up along M'Baku's body to sit astride his waist, kissing him hungrily. M'Baku's teeth scraped his lower lip, but the slight pain only heated his blood; he smoothed his palms up over hips and ribs as he chased the kiss deeper. Only when he felt M'Baku's warm, slick hand on his back did he break to gasp, "Please—"

"I am taking my time."

Bracing one hand at T'Challa's waist, M'Baku worked the other slowly into the cleft of T'Challa's ass. The pressure of his hands was steady, inexorable; he kneaded T'Challa's backside like a sculptor shaping clay, and T'Challa could only arch against that hand and let himself be wrought. The pleasure of that touch rippled through him in warm waves, until every place where skin met skin was alight with sensation. When at last one slick fingertip brushed over his opening, he swelled up to kiss M'Baku long and full and hungry.

Somewhere in the depths of that kiss, M'Baku sank his finger in to the second knuckle. As T'Challa groaned into his mouth, M'Baku laughed and began to stroke him open.

It was easy to lose himself in that touch—to rock back onto M'Baku's hand, to feel the dull burn of stretching flare again and again into pleasure. He lost track of how many fingers were inside him. The world condensed to the bed and the bowl and the heat of M'Baku's body; time unraveled, leaving them suspended in slow-mounting ecstasy.

M'Baku's clean hand caught T'Challa's cheek, tilting his face up so that they could meet each other's eyes. M'Baku looked as glazed as T'Challa felt, his pupils wide and his lips parted. "Are you ready?" he asked.

"I've been ready since that night in your tent."

One last time, M'Baku dipped his hand in the bowl. He curled in to work the oil over his cock, pressing his brow to T'Challa's. Their skin was washed with sweat where it touched; M'Baku's breath came sharp and ragged. T'Challa pushed himself up a little on hands and knees, then let M'Baku guide him into place.

He felt the blunt tip of M'Baku's cock nudge his opening, and he eased himself down.

Even after all their preparations, the sheer size of it made T'Challa's knees go weak. Every muscle trembled with mingled pain and pleasure; his own cock ached with want. When his ass came to rest on M'Baku's thighs, he paused a moment, forcing himself to breathe.

M'Baku rested his hand on T'Challa's hip. "Too much for you?"

"More than I was expecting."

"I'm used to being underestimated."

"I won't make that mistake again." _Breathe._ With each breath, the pain faded, until only pleasure remained.

He rolled his hips and slid partway off of M'Baku's cock, felt the glorious burn of friction before he ground down again. M'Baku gripped his hip and swelled up to meet him on the downstroke. He met T'Challa's eyes, grinning, fierce and magnificent beneath him.

He pushed T'Challa back just a little, and the next stroke made him see stars. "Ready now?" he laughed, and T'Challa was so far gone that he could only grip M'Baku's waist with his thighs and answer, "Fuck me, you beautiful man."

They thrust against each other fast and hard, bracing themselves on waist and wrist and shoulder; when M'Baku caught T'Challa by the cock, the heat of his hand alone was almost enough to finish him. Each touch and thrust and kiss pushed them closer to the edge. T'Challa's blood sang; his heartbeat pounded in his ears.

He came over M'Baku's stomach, panting, and M'Baku followed close behind.

In the afterglow, M'Baku muttered, "Should have thought this through better. Oil and white blankets. Fuck me."

"I just did." Curling his palm at M'Baku's breastbone, T'Challa closed his eyes. "I'll send you new ones."

"That would be appreciated."

They lay together in silence, catching their breaths. The night breeze caught the hanging boughs by M'Baku's balcony and made them knock against one another like chimes.

Into that rough music, M'Baku asked, "Enjoy yourself?"

T'Challa smiled and nestled against his chest. "Very much. And I plan to enjoy myself again."

* * *

Nakia and Shuri were bent over a new set of ring blades when Nakia's kimoyo beads sounded. She turned up her palm, still only half-attentive.

A lightning storm of static unfolded over her hand. Blackness crackled and swarmed with unfamiliar letters. She blinked, then held her hand out to Shuri. "Could you send me that Jabari code update?"

"I should just push a patch to all our operating systems," Shuri muttered, linking her beads to Nakia's. "Recoding their data is just so inefficient! If the Jabari weren't so stubborn—there."

The static resolved into a message scribed in silver light. _T'Challa says we should talk about social programs,_ it said.

_Write me back._


End file.
